News:
April 29, 2019
West African countries would have to settle for Public- Private-Partnership (PPP) programmes to harness their natural resources in the absence of capital and technology, Mr Clement Kofi Humado, Member of Parliament for Anlo has suggested.
According to the Anlo lawmaker, all the West African countries are not at the same level of development and do not have the same technology and added that we need to learn from each other.
He made this known in an interview when three joint committees of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, held a delocalized meeting in Accra and visited Tema Meridian Port Services.
He noted that field trips of these nature by ECOWAS lawmakers help them to learn not only to equip them to debate on the floor of the community Parliament in Abuja, but also to go back to their own countries to influence the thinking and implementation of policies.
Mr. Clement Kofi Humado who participated in a delocalized meeting in Guinea Conakry revealed that, that country’s citizens believe their colonial masters the French and the capitalist from the Western are out there to ‘rob them’; hence they do not want any PPP, “but we need to take some risk, we need to engage in PPP with some of these capitalist countries to begin with”.
When we find out feet and begin to become stronger, then we can try to depend on our own resources. Adding that most of the resources of the West African Countries are in the earth; bauxite, diamond, gold, you have to go and dig it out, the minerals and oils the deposits they are all way under the sea.
He added further that, we need technology to go and dig it out, and the people who have the technology you need to partner with them, and establish a fair ration of profit sharing, when you start that way and you are able to put your savings aside and accumulate it into your own capital.
As to whether the fears of the people of Guinea Conakry is not founded, he responded by saying it is founded, but what else can one do sometimes you have to, “shake hands with devil when you do it quickly you remove your hands”
“We need to undertake some of these partnerships, try in the process to build our own strength, when we do that we can then reduce our over reliance on the capital market from the West, but right now we do not have an option”
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com